Leases

The Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) has finalized its latest State Forest Resource Management Plan (SFRMP), releasing with it an oil and gas development position statement that reaffirms no new leases will be sold for state-owned land.

The turnaround in natural gas reserve prospects within the Mancos Shale of Colorado’s Piceance Basin gained further amplification Tuesday during testimony before the House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in Colorado on Tuesday released the final supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS) and proposed plan for the long-controversial Roan Plateau in Western Colorado that is highly coveted by producers and naturalists alike.

About one month after Royal Dutch Shell plc and other producers collectively abandoned millions of acres of leasehold in Alaska’s Chukchi Sea, Spain’s Repsol SA has joined the exodus, relinquishing nearly 100 federal leases it acquired at auction in 2008.

The lead attorney for the Mountain States Legal Foundation (MSLF) told the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Monday that Solenex LLC plans to file an amendment to its 2013 legal challenge of the U.S. Interior Department’s inaction and eventual cancellations of 18 oil and gas leases on federal lands in Montana.

U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell on Thursday bowed to Blackfeet Indian Nation concerns and cancelled a proposed oil/natural gas lease sale in the Badger-Two Medicine area of the Lewis and Clark National Forest in northwest Montana.

Aubrey McClendon, 56, the former chief and co-founder of Chesapeake Energy Corp., was killed Wednesday in a single-car crash, authorities said.

Former Chesapeake Energy Corp. CEO Aubrey McClendon, 56, who founded American Energy Partners LP in 2013, was killed in a car wreck Wednesday, according to Oklahoma authorities.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has proposed canceling 25 oil/natural gas leases that were issued more than a decade ago in the Thompson Divide area of western Colorado. Industry representatives were dismayed by the move.